


so darkness i became

by AnguishofMyLove, renaissance



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Unhappy Ending, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 16:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8168965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnguishofMyLove/pseuds/AnguishofMyLove, https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: To make something orderly out of magic, there are rules that must be followed. To tame darkness and light, there are sacrifices that must be made. To let magic run wild again, there are rules that must be broken.





	

**Author's Note:**

> From the author: It's been so much fun to take part in Magic Fest! Many thanks to my ~anonymous~ artistic collaborator for all the help and input with the plotting and writing process. I hope you guys enjoy this sad story about girls and magic. (The title is from the Florence & the Machine song "Cosmic Love.")

In the centre of the chamber, their High Priestess sat on her makeshift throne. Twigs, crows’ feathers, twining vines, all obscuring what had once been a wicker chair. Spindly branches and thorny roses stuck out at odd angles, so much that Hitoka wondered how Saeko sat there comfortably—yet she did, her arms somehow fitting between the hazards to rest on either side, poised like she owned it.

“Yui Michimiya.” She said it with a heaviness in her voice that went beyond her years. “You stand here accused of a breach of coven sanctity. How do you plead?”

Just two metres away from the throne, Yui stood facing Saeko, her head hung. “Guilty, High Priestess,” she said.

Saeko sighed. “The penalty for your crime is expulsion from the coven. You will have to live your life among regular humans—assuming you don’t get picked up by another coven, which is unlikely.”

Unlikely, Hitoka thought, because she had heard that their coven was so different from any other. The prejudice of being among these women was already so strong that there was no way any of them would last a minute in any other coven.

“On top of that, you will be stripped of your crystals,” Saeko continued, “and forbidden from practicing magic outside a coven environment. Do you accept this ruling?”

Yui opened her mouth to speak, but Hitoka’s mentor Kiyoko interrupted, stepping forward: “High Priestess, surely the punishment does not need to be so severe? You know as well as all of us that it was the boy who broke off their relationship. He will not see Yui again, and we have spelled him not to speak of her.”

A silence settled over the room. Hitoka bit her bottom lip, her eyes flickering between Kiyoko and Yui and Saeko, the tension in the air almost too much to bear. Hitoka had not been a member of this coven for long, and although Kiyoko was her mentor, Yui had also been kind to her—Yui had a good heart, whatever else she had done. Hitoka remembered her first day in the coven, when she had gotten lost in the castle’s winding hallways and found herself in a hallway lined with glass cases full of objects that could only have been archaic implements of torture. Yui had sensed her with her speciality—tracking down people in need, and locating all sorts of sticky situations—and showed Hitoka back to Kiyoko’s study.

After a long time, too long, Saeko raised a hand. “There will be a probationary period of three months,” she said.

Hitoka watched Yui now, her shoulders slumping in relief.

“During this period, Yui Michimiya will try to prove herself worthy once more—” here, Saeko smiled, “—which I’m sure she will accomplish. Kiyoko Shimizu, I assign you as a guardian, to watch over Yui Michimiya in this period. Do you accept?”

Kiyoko bowed her head. “I do, High Priestess.”

“Then it is done.”

The atmosphere fled their gathering, and a few of the witches began whispering among themselves. It was too soon for Hitoka to share their levity, but she did relax her shoulders as the crowd scattered around her. Even Saeko stood, a concerned frown crossing her face, and they parted to let her leave.

Yui came to Kiyoko. “I can’t thank you enou—”

“Enough,” Kiyoko said. “Don’t mention it, Yui. I know you would’ve done the same for me. I can only hope that you learn from this incident.”

“Of course,” Yui said. “Perhaps this probationary period will be good for me—I don’t like to admit it, but I’ve felt a little weaker than usual lately.”

“My priority now is Hitoka’s training,” Kiyoko said, “but I expect you to report to me at five every day to go over your progress.”

Yui nodded. “Of course.”

Hitoka knew what Yui must have been thinking. It was what some of the girls from other covens were saying about Hitoka—how could they give an apprentice to someone with no speciality? Kiyoko was indubitably a witch, her potions and charms were second to none, bursting with such vitality as they lasted weeks. But she had no specific _power_ , nothing that distinguished her from a common hedge witch.

That was why they had assigned Hitoka to her, a young witch whose power had just blossomed. A young witch whose power was unlike any other: Hitoka could strengthen the magic of those around her. Already she had watched Saeko cast a wall of flame while she channelled Hitoka’s strength—it had been the most amazing thing Hitoka had seen, the most amazing thing she had done.

“And it was all you,” Saeko had said.

Kiyoko’s power was yet to bloom. But with Hitoka around, it might.

They withdrew from the chamber. It was late now, and Kiyoko required Hitoka to start early every morning. And outside the chamber, they allowed themselves to lapse—the code of formality only held in the chamber, where they had to stand with their backs straight and maintain deferral to the High Priestess. Outside of the chamber, a coven essential, Saeko disliked holding to the traditions that many other covens lived by. That was part of what had drawn Hitoka here in the first place, and she stood by her fondness of the place. Witnessing what happened to Yui might have made a lesser apprentice wary, but Saeko’s lenience was proof enough to Hitoka that this was truly the right coven for her.

“You don’t have to worry, you know.”

When Hitoka looked up, she saw Kiyoko giving her a soft smile. “I—I know.”

“Nevertheless,” Kiyoko said, “it’s good to remember that things like this happen only rarely. Especially in a coven like ours. That is to say, you will not be punished for any minor transgression.”

“I wouldn’t want to transgress at all!” Hitoka said quickly. “I mean, so long as I have you teaching me, I know I’ll be fine!”

Kiyoko bowed her head. “Don’t give me too much credit too quickly. You know I don’t—”

“And I don’t care,” Hitoka said.

“You’re a good student, Hitoka,” Kiyoko said.

More than that, Kiyoko was a good friend. Hitoka was still wrapping her head around the idea that she was a witch, though it had been almost a year since her powers had begun to appear. She hadn’t even come to terms with the fact that witches had a lifespan about twice that of humans. Kiyoko, in her own way, was quietly helping Hitoka adjust to that. She worried it might be unprofessional to tell Kiyoko just how important she was to Hitoka, so she kept her mouth closed, lips pressed together but buzzing with so many things she wanted to say, and didn’t.

Kiyoko had that effect on her.

 

* * *

 

Hitoka’s room was one of the highest in the rickety castle her coven called home, a rounded enclave at the top of a turret with sturdy limestone walls and a chronic draft. She shared the space with Runa, one of the other new apprentices—Runa’s power was giving life, and with Hitoka’s help she could make flowers bloom in the cracks between the stone walls, small blooms in yellow, orange, pink, which were threatening to overtake their beds.

But once Hitoka had given Runa that power, the flowers wouldn’t stop growing.

Their florid room caught the sunlight as it rose, brushing through translucent petals like rays scattered by stained glass windows. The early morning brought bustle and activity to the coven, but little of the noise would reach the tower. If they hadn’t been required to hand in all their technology on arrival, Hitoka might have set an alarm on her phone. As it was, Kiyoko had taught her how to make a small charm for it with blue agate and dried blue hydrangea petals. Witchcraft was strange and temperamental, and Hitoka didn’t quite understand how or why it worked, but she put it on her wrist every night before she slept, and she woke up at nine sharp every morning. Like magic.

“What spells are you doing today?” Runa asked her.

Hitoka checked her notebook. “I’m still working at level five. The lights-out spell—”

“That was a pain!” Runa said. Her eyes went wide at the memory. “I spent weeks trying to make it work.”

“I’ve been jealous of every witch with light powers for the last three days,” Hitoka moaned. “The mechanics of it are strange. I’m never sure if I need to focus on lamplight, or sunlight—and then, how do shadows play into it? Do I need to focus on making the shadow spread or on making the light fade?”

“I found more success in looking at the light,” Runa said, “but Hana told me it shifts from person to person. For her, it was the fringes of the shadows, the boundaries.”

Frowning, Hitoka picked up her pen—attached by a string to the notebook—and wrote this down. She was always taking notes, perfectly, neatly organised, trying to keep on top of all the magic she was learning. While witchcraft was messy, the covens made a valiant effort to codify it and bring it to young witches in a more manageable way. Hitoka appreciated that, but she knew there were some witches who would rather go back to their wild ways. She sometimes wondered if she might’ve been one of them, but casting without the proper care was typical of dark magic, which was something Hitoka didn’t even want to think about. It was something no good witch would think about.

“Ah, sorry,” Runa said, putting her hands out in apology, “does that make sense?”

“It does, it does,” Hitoka said, still scribbling furiously.

Runa rocked back on her heels. “I’m sure you’ll get it in no time.”

Hitoka wasn’t so certain. Nevertheless, she appreciated Runa’s good cheer. To have someone like that as a roommate—Hitoka was truly lucky.

She went ahead of Runa to breakfast, served in the grandiose dining hall at the back of the castle. It was light and open, lined with tables too long to ever be filled. They ate simply in the coven. They dressed simply too, lively peacefully. If they limited the facets of their life that could cause distraction, they would be able to focus more thoroughly on their spellwork. Hitoka stuck to the rules like clockwork, determined to make the most of her apprenticeship.

It was something she didn’t like to think about—when her apprenticeship was completed and she had mastered all the levels in her textbooks, she would be required to spend some time in another coven. Witches travelled after they were fully trained, sometimes even to other countries, but Hitoka had found herself such an accepting home here that she was reluctant to move on. Maybe she would feel differently after her years of study.

What scared her was that maybe, she wouldn’t.

After breakfast, Hitoka made her way to her first tutorial of the day. Kiyoko taught in a study overlooking the castle courtyard, vines twining along the criss-crossed iron on the windows. The sun filtered in along diamond-shaped shafts, blurred by the lamplight, so it was perfect for practicing the spell.

“Hitoka. Your focus has shifted.”

She hummed in agreement. “Runa told me that Hana uses the boundaries as her focal point.”

“You shouldn’t try to copy someone else’s methods,” Kiyoko said. “Reposition your crystal, and try again with what feels right by your intuition.”

Hitoka’s standard training crystal was broad white quartz, large enough that she had a reasonable margin of error for focal points. She closed her eyes, blocking out all the light, trying to sense where the brightest source was—that would be a good place to start, since her intuition was failing her. To her surprise, it wasn’t the light from the summer sun, but the lamp at the far side of the room.

Why did Kiyoko have a lamp on in summer?

When she opened her eyes, she was facing the lamp. She didn’t remember turning. Holding up her crystal and centring it on the amber glass covering the flame, she whispered the incantation for lights-out.

There was a loud snapping noise, and the light disappeared.

No, it wasn’t just the light—the whole lamp had gone, leaving behind the bracket that had held it in place.

“Ah, Hitoka,” Kiyoko said, her voice brimming with pride, “you really are powerful.”

Blushing, Hitoka lowered her crystal. “But that’s not what it’s meant to do.”

“I’m not so sure,” Kiyoko said. “After all, the spell is to remove a light source. Most people just turn it off, but you, Hitoka—you are exceptionally strong. I’m not surprised it did what it did. And when you can demonstrate that to our High Priestess, I’m sure it’ll be more than enough to grant you access to level six spells.”

“Do you think so?” Hitoka asked. She didn’t want to get too hopeful. There was always the chance it would never work again, and Saeko would be so unimpressed that Hitoka would be downgraded to a level four again, or worse, put on probation, or expelled from the coven.

Kiyoko’s smile went some way to reassuring her. “I’m certain.”

 

* * *

 

Every full moon, the entire coven would gather in the courtyard. This ritual was as important as any coven meeting, but carried a different gravitas for some witches. It was, indirectly, a test of strength, and the younger witches were always cautious about putting forward their best showing, risking embarrassment to do it.

Hitoka didn’t see why they worried. It wasn’t as though this was the sort of coven where they’d be mocked for falling behind. Hitoka had found her new peers nothing but supportive—she didn’t like to think that it might not always have been that way, that one day it might not be anymore.

Tonight, the privilege of starting the ceremony was Hitoka’s.

“By the light of the full moon,” Saeko proclaimed, “we ask that no other light grace us.”

On cue, Hitoka channelled everything she could into her lights-out spell. This, she was nervous about—not the ceremony itself, but this. She had passed successfully to level six using her method of focusing on the brightest source of light, usually some sort of lamp. Tonight, though, that source was the moon itself, and that thought pattern wouldn’t work. With her white quartz held out in front of her, not positioned on any specific light, she cast the spell.

It took longer than usual, but it worked. Before she even opened her eyes, she could feel the colours around her fading to something pale and dim, only the full moon to illuminate them.

“Well done,” Kiyoko whispered.

Hiroka stood up taller as she put her white quartz back in her crystal pouch.

Two of the more senior witches moved a large display to the centre of their makeshift circle. On a podium of twined branches, fringed by ivy vines and half-wilted winter peonies, there sat more crystals than Hitoka could name. They were arranged intricately, with the largest white quartz at the summit of this miniature mountain. The quartz was sharpened to a point, its facets radiating out from the apex. This was the coven’s hearth crystal, carved at its founding, and no more than one facet for each member. By ancient laws, there could never be more facets than members—Hitoka liked the way this necessitated a small, select group of women. Or maybe she liked the women themselves.

And around the hearth crystal, everyone was equal: no facet was broader than any other, and the High Priestess could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an apprentice.

Which, she did. Hitoka was surprised to see Saeko step into place alongside her. Yui took her other side.

“You cast admirably tonight, Hitoka,” Yui said. “For your first full moon ceremony, you ought to be very proud of yourself.”

Hitoka’s mouth went dry. She knew she had a lot of magic in her, and that she learnt fast, but she was still unused to compliments. “A-ah, I only—”

“Casting lights-out with a full moon in the background is no small achievement,” Saeko cut in, giving Hitoka a wink. “Did you notice that, since your first full moon, no other apprentice has had the honour?”

“This is only my third full moon,” Hitoka said.

Saeko hummed. “The first of many, I’m sure.”

Seeing the High Priestess like this, so much more casual than in the central chamber, Hitoka was reminded how young Saeko was. It was easy to forget that the coven in this incarnation was relatively new, founded on the grounds of a long since abandoned coven and with their ancient hearth crystal by Saeko’s late mother. Saeko was young, and carefree, but the coven’s history was her own, and its future even more so.

“Let the ceremony begin,” she declared. Turning to Yukie on her right, she said, “You may start.”

It was a formality. The witch to the High Priestess’ right always began the full moon proceedings. With a start, Hitoka realised that this meant she would be last. Had Saeko done that intentionally? After all, she had sought out Hitoka to stand beside her. Why would she want Hitoka to take the last turn? Was her power too wild and out of control? Had she been accidentally lending power to the other witches through the crystal on the last two full moons?

Panicked, Hitoka was unable to concentrate on the ceremony. She knew the ritual well enough, that to offer your destiny to the hands of the gods in return for extra strength you had to demonstrate your own mastery of nature, but right now she felt like her knees would give way before she could even begin to cast a spell. When it came to Yui’s turn, Hitoka knew she would be soon, and she would have to surpass her nervousness somehow—now, she understood why the other girls found the full moon ritual so terrifying. Maybe they’d found themselves standing to the High Priestess’ right too.

Yui took a crystal from her pouch, a small rod of chrysoberyl. There was one crystal that worked better than any other for each witch, but it took a while to find, and the apprentices used white quartz until then. Kiyoko cast with jet, black as night; Runa used citrine, light and airy just like her. Yui’s chrysoberyl always seemed so calming to Hitoka. It suited her.

For the ritual, Yui held her crystal first to her heart and then to her facet of the hearth crystal. “Let me draw from the light of the full moon,” she said. “Let the magic within me run forth, and in return may the gods look favourably upon me.”

The hearth crystal started to glow, effervescent with the power of the moon that Yui had given it. Maybe it was Hitoka’s imagination, but it didn’t seem as bright as it had earlier in the evening. Maybe Hitoka really did ruin magic just by being near it.

Saeko nudged Hitoka. “Your turn.”

The reaction to Yui’s offering had been lacklustre. Hitoka knew that when she performed the same ritual, it would be explosive and bright as it had been before. She had been experimenting with different crystals—she was particularly fond of sphalerite, and cancrinite worked well for her too. She’d even seen some success with bloodstone, but she wouldn’t admit that. Bloodstone was well known for its use in dark magic, and Hitoka wasn’t even meant to have tried it at her low level. It was down to Kiyoko’s kindness that she was allowed to experiment with a broad range of crystals.

And anyway, she didn’t want to show off, not now. She took an ellipsoid of beginners’ amber from her pouch and held it to her heart, then to the next facet of the hearth crystal.

“Let me draw from the light of the full moon. Let the magic within me run forth, and in return may the gods look favourably upon me.”

Even with the beginners’ amber, Hitoka could tell the hearth crystal glowed brighter than it had all evening. Worse still, she knew her blush would show up clearly in its bright light. But she _was_ embarrassed; she was the youngest there, the newest apprentice, and yet she had more power in her than any of the—

No. She wouldn’t think like that.

The hearth crystal faded, and Hitoka withdrew. She tried to clear her mind as Saeko withdrew her large, almost heart-shaped fragment of rhodochrosite and performed the ritual. Hitoka was gratified to see the hearth crystal glowing just as brightly.

Maybe— _maybe_ —she had nothing to worry about.

 

* * *

 

The sunlight brushed lazily across the courtyard on Hitoka’s afternoon off. It was Friday and she had the place to herself, even though it was the time when every apprentice in the coven was relieved from their studies and allowed a few hours that were, if you followed the rules, strictly for reflection and private study. Hitoka liked to spend this time outside, under the shade of a tree, the birds singing for her only company.

It was common coven mythology that everything got harder at level six. Hitoka hadn’t found that yet—which worried her, because what if that meant she was doing something wrong? Did it seem easy because she had misread the instructions, and the spells weren’t having their desired effect? Was Kiyoko just humouring her?

A gust of wind blew through the courtyard and turned a few pages in Hitoka’s spellbook.

“Oh, no, no, which page was I—”

She stopped, seeing what page the book lay open on. It was a level eight spell entitled “Summoning Darkness.” Most spells didn’t have these fancy headings—the lights-out spell was simply described as “a spell to remove (selectively, or otherwise) some source of light in a region of close proximity.” The witches called it lights-out for short.

And wasn’t summoning darkness just the same as removing light? Her curiosity taking over, Hitoka held the page down with one finger and scanned the text with another.

Each spell, generally speaking, had three elements: an incantation, a mental focus, and a physical focus. The incantations were always the simplest part—they weren’t required by the spell itself, otherwise mute witches might’ve had rather a hard time of it, but were suggested words to aid the mental focus. That was the part Hitoka found the hardest, choosing how to direct her concentration just right for the spell to work. One thought out of place and you could be turning your practice cactus into a squirrel instead of making it bloom.

The physical focus was easy enough, if you were in a coven and had access to all the crystals and plants you needed. The physical focus of Summoning Darkness caught Hitoka’s eye—it was a bloodstone, and a ring of rose thorns. This was not a spell to be trifled with.

Nevertheless, she rummaged through her crystal pouch and pulled out the bloodstone that she really wasn’t supposed to have. Rose thorns, she didn’t have handy—none of the spells she’d learnt so far had used them—but she knew where she could find them. Cupping the bloodstone in her palms, she whispered the incantation.

Nothing happened. She knew nothing would happen. What was she thinking, trying a level eight spell? One of these birds might have seen her. She was sure there were a few witches who could speak bird. What if the bird told on her? She’d really done it now.

But… there was something about this spell. Maybe it was that it specifically used a bloodstone, this strange stone that so intrigued her.

The instructions were in her memory, and that was enough for now. She put her bloodstone away and flipped back to the page she’d been on.

She was about to go back to learning the spell to amplify a sound when a shout tore through the courtyard.

“Come look at this!”

It was Yukie at the main doors, waving her arms in the air. Hitoka snapped her book shut and, balancing it under one arm, jumped to her feet. Yukie’s tone was urgent, but she didn’t look too panicked. Nevertheless, Hitoka worried.

“Yukie, what’s happened?”

“You’ll see—in the laboratory—”

Yukie broke into a run and gestured for Hitoka to follow her. They made for the laboratory closest to the courtyard, and as they got closer Hitoka could smell smoke. That didn’t bode well. The smell, as well as Yukie’s shouts, had brought other witches to the laboratory, and by now there was a small crowd assembled.

“In here,” Yukie said.

Whatever was causing the smoke, it wasn’t a fire. Kiyoko was standing in the middle of the room, and floating above her was one of the other senior witches, Kaori. _Floating_ was putting it mildly—she was trapped against the ceiling like a helium balloon. Even her ponytail was sticking out to the side, disobeying gravity.

“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Kaori said, laughing. She waved down at them, crossing her legs in place to show that she was still mobile. “I’m fine up here!”

“Fine?” Yukie said. “You’re floating!”

“It doesn’t hurt or anything,” Kaori said, “but I can’t seem to get down from here. Kiyoko and I have tried everything.”

Kiyoko was in the middle of casting a spell—her incantation finished, she held her jet crystal up towards Kaori, but nothing happened except the smell of smoke growing stronger. From Kiyoko’s expression, Hitoka surmised that this wasn’t the first time she had tried it.

“What happened?” one of the other witches asked.

“We were working on a simple variant of the levitation spell,” Kiyoko said, “and then… this.”

For a dreadful moment Hitoka wondered if it had been her doing. After all, she could amplify the power of those around her, and she had been sitting close enough to this laboratory.

But then, Kaori said, “It didn’t feel like I was putting all of my power into it. Well, I tried to, but something was missing. Some part of my mental focus couldn’t connect to my magical strength.”

“What did it feel like?” Yui asked. Hitoka hadn’t noticed she was there.

“Like playing the piano,” Kaori said. “Like I tried to play the next note in a scale, but suddenly my finger wasn’t there.”

Yui hummed. “Yes, I understand.”

She looked like she was going to continue, but just that moment Saeko arrived. It was like they had all been surprised into inaction, Hitoka realised, but someone must’ve had the good sense to call the High Priestess. With Saeko’s expert knowledge, Kaori floated benignly to the ground, with Yukie and Kiyoko to catch her.

For reasons that Hitoka couldn’t quite explain, it left her thoroughly shaken. _Had_ it been her fault, her power running amok? She took to her chambers after that and lay quietly on the bed, even though the sun was still out, and there was still work to do.

 

* * *

 

When Hitoka arrived at Kiyoko’s study, Yui was there.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, “we’re just finishing up.”

Hitoka couldn’t help herself. “What have you been working on?” she asked.

“We’ve been working on new spells together,” Kiyoko said. “This guardianship—it’s just a formality. We don’t even stick to our timetable anymore. Yui is at the same level as me, so there’s nothing for me to teach her.”

“I got off with a very light punishment,” Yui said, smiling.

“I still say it’s too harsh,” Kiyoko said.

Hitoka hadn’t heard her express that sentiment before. She gave Kiyoko a questioning look, but it was Yui who replied.

“Some witches think that we treat the sanctity of the coven too seriously,” Yui said. “That it wouldn’t matter so much if outsiders knew of our existence. Kiyoko is one such witch.”

Kiyoko’s face was unreadable. “If a witch is in love with a human, there should be nothing to stop them from seeing each other and knowing each other’s true natures. The ’sanctity of the coven’ is a weak excuse for insularity.”

“The way you talk, anyone would think _you_ were the one who’d fallen for a human,” Yui said. It sounded as though she was aiming for some levity, but fell short.

And Hitoka was surprised—she hadn’t heard Kiyoko speak like this before. It wasn’t something she had spent any time thinking about. She had always accepted that her life as a witch was a secret. Her parents didn’t even know; they thought she had gone away to Tokyo for university. Witches had nothing to do with humans, had never had _anything_ to do with humans after they’d left for their first coven.

Could anything change that?

“Anyway,” Yui said awkwardly, “I’m going to do some private study now. Kiyoko—same time next week?”

“Same time next week,” Kiyoko said. She nodded to Yui in farewell.

The room went very quiet once Yui was gone. Hitoka felt like every hair on her body was standing on end. She rocked back on her heels, watching as Kiyoko put away the flowers and crystals she and Yui had been using.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” Kiyoko said eventually. “You mustn’t let your opinions of witchcraft be influenced by mine.”

“I won’t,” Hitoka said, but her brain wouldn’t stop working, thinking about what might be if witches wandered freely among humans.

Whatever else she could do, Kiyoko clearly couldn’t read minds. She turned around to Hitoka with a warm smile on her face. “Enough of that now. How are you finding level six?”

“It’s not so bad,” Hitoka said honestly. “I think I’ve mastered the spell to change the colour of living tissue.”

Kiyoko nodded, taking a practice cactus down from one of her shelves and placing it in front of Hitoka. “Show me.”

The colour-changing spell required a sheaf of mica, a fragile crystal, so Hitoka kept hers in a special pocket to the side of her pouch. She surrounded the potted cactus with a ring of plum blossom branches and the petals of a white rose, and brought the mica to her chest as she said the incantation. Then, she held the mica against the top of the cactus—the deep green drained from it, leaving it a sickly white, soon replaced by a blooming pink.

“An inspired choice,” Kiyoko said. “Were you focusing on pink?”

Hitoka nodded, embarrassed. “It’s a bit brighter than I imagined.”

“That’s to be expected,” Kiyoko said, “since your power is a little bit stronger than you can control yet.”

“Next time I’ll try to think of it even fainter,” Hitoka said.

Kiyoko’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I’m not so sure that’s a good approach. You might be better off working with the power you have. Things start to go wrong when you don’t use it to your full capabilities—like poor Kaori last week.”

“But the way she spoke,” Hitoka said, “it sounded as though she didn’t intend to cast the spell with less power than it required.”

“So think about how bad it might be if you _tried_ to do something like that,” Kiyoko said sadly.

It would be bad. It would be the kind of disaster that Hitoka was worried about causing every moment she walked past a laboratory without consciously keeping her power in check, magnified tenfold.

“Wait here,” Kiyoko said, a sudden shift in tone. “Since you managed that so skillfully on the cactus, you should know that this spell works unusually well on fresh-cut hydrangeas. You’re doing well, so it doesn’t hurt to extend yourself a little. I’ll gather some from the courtyard.”

She left Hitoka in the quiet of the study. Alone, Hitoka’s mind tended to wander—she was still caught on what Yui had said about Kiyoko’s attitude to humans and witches. On Kaori, in the laboratory. On Summoning Darkness, so many pages ahead in her spellbook.

When Kiyoko returned, Hitoka had worked up enough courage to bring up that spell.

“I read ahead in my spellbook,” she said, like she was confessing a grave secret. “I didn’t _mean_ to, only—there was a spell that caught my eye, and I wondered if I might—ah, borrow something to try it?”

Kiyoko looked more amused than scandalised, as Hitoka had feared she might be. “What was the spell?”

“It was called Summoning Darkness,” Hitoka said. “It seems like another method for lights-out.”

“You could say that,” Kiyoko said. “You would need rose thorns, then, is that correct?”

Hitoka nodded. She felt shy, insignificant. Who was she to be demanding materials for something so far above her level? Why was she even suggesting it at all? This was a mistake, a silly mistake. She wished the wind had never blown that day. Surely there was a spell to stop the wind from blowing?

But then, Kiyoko said, “Tomorrow. You will try it for the first time under my supervision.”

Although their coven was one of the most progressive and free, there were still rules. Up until recently, Hitoka had taken that for granted. Now, she was beginning to suspect that Kiyoko disagreed with the coven rules on more than one matter.

 

* * *

 

“I’m worried about Yui.”

Given that Kiyoko didn’t tend to confide in Hitoka, it wasn’t how she’d expected this morning’s lesson to start. Hitoka was doing so well at all the colour-based spells in level six. She had been working in the courtyard the other day, and what was meant to be a spell concentrated on one leaf had turned an entire oak tree to the colours of a maple.

“Is it because of her probation?” Hitoka asked.

“I don’t know,” Kiyoko said. “I wonder. Her magic has been—less, lately.”

Hitoka remembered what Yui had said about Kaori’s misfired spell. _Yes, I understand_. Had Yui been experiencing something similar?

“Maybe I’m imagining it, but her casting is missing its usual flair,” Kiyoko continued. “Her focuses haven’t changed, and we’ve been working intensively in our meetings. Somehow, though, her spells fall flat. And, yes, sometimes they go awry. Sometimes, they don’t go off at all.”

“She might just be—” Hitoka paused, wondering how best to phrase her thoughts. “—sad. She might be sad, about the boy she fell in love with, and the way she was punished for it.”

“Daichi,” Kiyoko said. “That was his name. I met him once. He was very kind to both of us. And she wasn’t punished for falling in love with him—she was punished for telling him that she was a witch.”

“Which you don’t think she should’ve been,” Hitoka said, to make sure she understood.

Kiyoko nodded grimly. “I don’t. I think the effort involved in patching up this so-called ’lapse of judgement’ is far greater than the crime itself.”

“Did you have to wipe his memory?” Hitoka asked. She imagined something like a scene in a movie, with fancy equipment brought in and straps around some faceless boy’s head, and witches in white lab coats standing around him menacingly.

“No, no,” Kiyoko said, “nothing so serious. And that’s nothing we can do with witchcraft, anyway—to invade the mind of another person against their wishes is a _true_ crime. But he had to be cursed, so that he can never speak of witchcraft among humans without some great misfortune befalling him. I think that is cruel enough.”

“It is,” Hitoka said quietly.

Most of the time, she loved witchcraft, but hearing stories like this sent shivers down her spine. The idea lingered that it could happen to her, that maybe she would slip up on a visit home and accidentally tell her parents what she had been doing, or that she would go to the same doctor one time too many and they would work out that she had a strange lifespan, that she was one nervous stammer away from a breach of coven sanctity.

“Well, enough of that,” Kiyoko said. “Today’s lesson will be a practical one.”

“Aren’t they always practical?” Hitoka asked. She had been hoping to try the Summoning Darkness spell again, and maybe even get it right this time. “A-ah, I mean—”

“In a sense,” Kiyoko said, laughing. “But today we’ll be working on a real problem with some other witches. Up on the roof, we have a bit of a wasp problem. Wasps have some of the highest magic resistence levels of any creatures, so it’ll take several of us to get rid of them.”

“How are we doing that?” Hitoka asked. _We_. She hadn’t worked on any projects with other witches yet, if you didn’t count giving them some of her magic to make things more powerful. Even if it was just some wasp nests, it meant more to her than she could articulate.

All Kiyoko said was, “You’ll see.”

They made their way up a series of rickety staircases to an attic, which lead out onto the roof. For such an old castle, the roof was well-kept. The tiles were slippery, but one of the witches with them, Mai, was adept at casting shield magic—with her barriers in place, there was no way anyone could fall.

The other witch with them was Runa’s mentor Hana. Hitoka hadn’t met her properly before, because she lived in one of the far towers and frequently went on long trips.

“That’s because her speciality power involves transdimensional travel,” Kiyoko whispered behind her hand.

“I can hear you!” Hana said. “I can hear you in at least the nearest fifteen dimensions!”

“She’s making that up,” Mai said. “You can’t hear things from other dimensions without opening up a portal first.”

“This sounds like advanced magic,” Hitoka said nervously.

Hana nodded in agreement. “It’s not in any spellbook, that’s for certain. But, we all have our specialities—this just happens to be mine. Perhaps one day when we’re not dealing with wasps, I’ll take you to a parallel universe.”

Hitoka couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, but she loved the idea of transdimensional travel. And now, she was about to see some in action.

Their plan for dealing with the wasps was to suck them through one of Hana’s portals, but they needed a wind strong enough to dislodge them. Level six included a spell to induce a gust of wind, one of the first that Hitoka had mastered. Mai’s barriers would hold her physical focuses in place while she propelled the wasp nests directly towards Hana’s portal. If it seemed excessive, that’s because it was—but witches solved problems a little differently to humans, and putting on a pair of gloves and just yanking the wasp nests out of place was simply out of the question. Hitoka found it quite charming.

She stood to one side of the nests and readied her spell. For this, she used her personal preferred crystal, a finely-carved fragment of sphalerite, and an array of cinnamon bark marking out a flight path for her gust of wind. She said the incantation, trying not to be distracted by the glittering rip in space opening up between Hana’s fingers, and the wasp nests lifted.

The wind was powerful. It was directed straight in the path of the nests, and then it should’ve been lost in the portal, but the portal seemed to shrink once the nests were through, and the wind blew either side of it. Hana fell backwards and rolled towards the edge of the roof.

It would be alright, Hitoka told herself, trying to quell the panic that was rising in her. Mai’s barriers were there.

It was not alright.

She watched in horror as Hana, propelled by the out of control wind, the wind _Hitoka_ had created, fell backwards off the roof. There was no barrier to stop her, and she screamed as she went over. Kiyoko and Mai both rushed to her aid, casting hasty spells with minimal focus to stop her, but Hitoka was frozen in place. _She_ had done this.

 

* * *

 

“She’s fine,” Yui said, slipping out of the infirmary.

Hitoka was waiting with her back against the cold stone wall. She had lost track of what happened up there on the roof—it had flashed by so fast, but now she knew that Hana was fine, and that was all that mattered.

“Mai’s barrier still worked, as it turned out,” Yui said. “It had been extended, more than expected, and caught Hana halfway to the ground. She’s fine, if a little shocked.”

“It’s my fault,” Hitoka said quietly. “The wind I cast got out of hand, and Hana’s portal was closing sooner than I thought it would—my power really is too much, isn’t it? I should just leave the coven now, before I’m kicked out. It’s okay. I’ll become a hermit. I’ll sell potions to passing travellers from my hut in the woods. I’ll—”

“Hitoka!” Yui gave her an affirming smile. “You don’t need to worry. You didn’t do anything. It’s this shrinking portal that has me worried, and the way the barriers weren’t as tight as they needed to be… there’s something going wrong with the magic around this place.”

“It must be me,” Hitoka said, her head drooping down. Suddenly her feet were the most interesting thing in the world. “My power is too strong, so it makes things go wrong. Like with Kaori.”

“No,” Yui said decisively. “No, she said it was _less_ , not more. Hana’s portal got _smaller_. Mai’s barriers were lapsed, not strengthened. Other witches have mentioned similar things happening, although not quite on this scale. And I—Hitoka, would you hold my hands?”

Taken by surprise, Hitoka gathered her wits for a moment before answering. “Y-yes, of course!”

Yui reached into her crystal pouch and put a smooth, flat circle of chrysoberyl in each palm. Then, she put her arms out, and Hitoka took each of Yui’s hands in hers, the crystals between them.

“Concentrate your power on me,” Yui said.

Hitoka did as she was instructed, closing her eyes and letting the power flow out of her hands and into the crystals, into Yui. She was tense, but the process relaxed her. For just a moment, she allowed herself to believe that none of it had been her fault.

But something was wrong. Like a broken connection, a cut wire.

Yui pulled away sharply. “Excuse me,” she said, and then she left. Hitoka was left bewildered, standing in front of the infirmary.

What had it meant that Yui wouldn’t receive her power? Had Yui been trying to reject it? No, it didn’t seem like that—it seemed more like she had done everything she could to make the exchange stronger, down to using her favoured crystals as a medium, but it still hadn’t worked. Why, then? If Yui was right and the witches of their coven were getting weaker, what was causing it?

There was nothing left to do now but check on Hana. Hitoka had been avoiding it, because she had internalised it as her fault—no, it _was_ her fault, but if Yui was right, there were other forces at play. And, Hitoka reminded herself, she had intended no ill will to Hana, which would surely count for something.

Gingerly, she pushed at the heavy infirmary doors. When they wouldn’t budge, rather than exerting herself and making a scene, she chose to channel some of her power into her hands and strengthen her push.

A good witch wouldn’t have used magic without setting up the proper physical focus first. Sometimes the situation called for it—Kiyoko and Mai had tried to save Hana by using such spur of the moment magic. There were always going to be emergencies, but it wouldn’t be until level ten that Hitoka learnt the spell to store other spells in objects for later dates, like a twig you snapped when you needed to release the power contained inside. Containing raw magical power was one of the most advanced things a witch could do.

This—this wasn’t even an emergency. She just wanted to make a quiet entrance.

Hana was in a bed by the window of the infirmary, and Kiyoko and Mai were sitting with her. Hitoka’s first instinct was to leave, because there were already too many people there, and surely she wouldn’t be a welcome addition even if it was empty? But Hana smiled, and waved her over.

“Hitoka,” she said, “how are you feeling?”

“How are _you_ feeling?” Hitoka asked. “After I—”

“Come sit down,” Kiyoko interrupted. “We want to talk about what happened.”

Hitoka knew she was in trouble. This was it. Hermitude wasn’t looking so bad. At least she could grow flowers around her dilapidated cottage in the forest.

“We know there’s something going wrong with the magic around this coven,” Mai said. “Whatever it is—let’s call it un-magic—it took the strength out of my barriers, and they deflated like an old balloon.”

“It made my portal shrink before it could capture all of Hitoka’s wind,” Hana said.

“But at least we got rid of the wasp nests,” Mai said.

Hana laughed. The colour was returning to her cheeks. “That’s right. They’re doing well for themselves in a world populated entirely by insects and arachnids.”

“Everyone wins,” Mai said.

“Except, we don’t,” Kiyoko said. Her tone was serious like Hitoka had never heard it before. “We don’t know why our magic is becoming _less_.”

“Is yours, Kiyoko?” Mai asked, like it had just occurred to her.

Kiyoko bowed her head. “You know my magic has always been less potent than all of yours. And it’s no secret that I have no speciality power. It’s unlikely I would notice the change.”

Hitoka felt terrible—she wanted to say something reassuring, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she mimicked Kiyoko’s action, tucking her chin against her neck. She twisted her fingers together anxiously. It would be okay. It had to be. If everyone’s power was diminishing for some reason, but hers wasn’t—

“Oh!”

 

* * *

 

Saeko sat at the centre of the meeting chamber, arms resting to either side of her throne. There was none of the tension there had been last time a meeting was called—rather, a muted sadness, a sense that all was not well in the coven, and that no-one knew what to do about it. Hitoka was hoping to change that.

“Witches.” She nodded curtly. “We are gathered here today to discuss a proposal brought to us by apprentice Hitoka Yachi. Would you like to speak?”

Hitoka nodded. She stepped out of the circle as was protocol, just enough to differentiate herself from the witches around her. Deep breaths. There was nothing to be afraid of. She had practiced this speech. Clearing her throat, she began.

“It has been noticed lately, by various witches, that their power is diminishing. It is as though their spells are not working to their full extent—for example, the incident of Kaori Suzumeda floating to the roof, or Mai Nametsu’s failing barrier and Hana Misaki’s shrinking portal.”

She didn’t mention Yui.

“I—I have a proposal for a way we can solve this crisis,” Hitoka continued. She felt as though she could hardly breathe, she was so nervous. She looked to the other side of the circle, to where Kiyoko was standing, and caught her eye. At least she had something to ground her. “As some of you may know, it is my speciality power that I am able to give strength to other people’s magic. This curse—o-or, whatever it is—hasn’t affected me. I would like to do what I can to help, and give my power to all of you.”

“ _All_ of your power?” Saeko interrupted, her eyes wide.

“Not all of it!” Hitoka said quickly, flapping her hands in front of her. “Just enough that we can all be… equal.”

“It is a very noble offer,” Saeko said, “but before I open it up for discussion, I must tell you now that I cannot accept it. Your power is your own, Hitoka, and you must do what you can with it.”

Hitoka felt her face heating up. “T-thank you,” she managed to say, and stepped back in line with the rest of the circle.

Saeko cast her eyes across the chamber. “If anyone else has anything to add… ?”

“I do,” Yui said.

“Be wary that you are still under probation,” Saeko said, although her heart didn’t seem to be in her words. “Speak, Yui Michimiya.”

Yui closed her eyes as she stepped forward. When she opened them again, she seemed to be cast in a different light. “Hitoka Yachi outlined some cases of lessening power and failing spells. What she did not tell you is that I have lost my magic entirely.”

She allowed a pause, as though she knew the other witches would start whispering amongst themselves. They did. Yui shut her eyes again, tighter this time.

“Continue,” Saeko said.

“I am no longer a witch,” Yui said, “and so in due course I will seek permission to leave this coven. But before I do, I would like to propose an explanation for this phenomenon.”

Saeko nodded, evidently interested. “You may do so.”

“This began shortly after Hitoka Yachi joined the coven,” Yui said.

Hitoka was so startled she nearly jumped. It was all she could do to stay still, keep herself from reacting too visibly. She looked to Yui—Yui would not meet her gaze.

“I do not intend to suggest that Hitoka is the cause of this,” Yui said, “or at least, not directly. And in fact, she could not be, because we know that Hitoka’s power is to _give_ strength to magic, not take it away. When Hitoka was apprenticed to Kiyoko Shimizu, it was thought that Hitoka’s speciality would help Kiyoko’s own speciality come to the fore. I believe it did.”

“What are you saying?” Saeko demanded, her voice one tremor short of breaking.

Now, Hitoka looked to Kiyoko—she stood silent, impassive. How could she not react to this allegation? Could it be that… she had already worked it out?

“I am suggesting that every time Kiyoko Shimizu casts a spell, every witch nearby loses some of their magical power,” Yui said. “I have been working extensively with Kiyoko over the course of my short probationary period. We have cast spells together numerous times… and I have felt it, as my power slowly drained away.”

“You’re wrong!” Hitoka said. Her mouth moved before she could stop to think about what she was saying, but once she had said it, she knew it was the truth. “You’re wrong—there’s no way!”

It was a testament to the mood in the chamber that Saeko didn’t pause to chide Hitoka for speaking out of turn.

“Let me prove it to you,” Yui said.

There was something pained and desperate in her voice; Hitoka realised that it was hard on her too, that she didn’t want to believe that one of her closest friends had taken away all of her power. So why didn’t she _stop_ , Hitoka wondered? The answer came to her while the thought was still forming—if Yui truly believed that Kiyoko was sapping everyone’s power, then the whole coven was at stake. Which meant—

_No!_

“You don’t need to,” Hitoka said, “because you’re wrong, you have to be—”

“Order!” Saeko said. “Both of you, step back. I would like to hear what Kiyoko Shimizu has to say on the matter.”

Kiyoko didn’t so much as step forward. “I have nothing to say, High Priestess.”

Did she know? No, she couldn’t have known—Kiyoko was the sort of person who always put the needs of others ahead of her own. If she had known she was the cause of all these problems—if she _was_ the cause—then she would’ve left immediately, of her own volition.

She was in shock, then. That had to be it. Hitoka was in shock too, trying to hold herself together as the chamber’s echoing emptiness gave way to the rising hum of whispered conversation. They must all have been in shock.

“There’s only one way to find out if this is true or not,” Saeko said. Abandoning all formality, she got up from her throne and walked towards Kiyoko. “Cast a spell with me.”

“An oath,” Kiyoko said.

The whispering stopped in an instant. The oath was the most dangerous of spells—requiring only two unique crystals and joined hands, the magic of the two witches merged so that they could feel the pull on each other’s power. That bond was only broken if the oath itself was broken.

Saeko breathed in, let out a deep sigh. “What will you swear on?”

 _No_ —Hitoka couldn’t let this happen!

“I swear on my position in the coven,” Kiyoko said. “If, when our powers are bonded, you feel my magic draining your own, I swear to leave the coven by my own choosing. But if that is the case, and I truly am the cause of this loss of magic, you must, by coven law, cast me out against my wishes. Then, the oath will be broken—you will be free of any drain, and I will be gone.”

But with those conditions, she would be gone either way.

“Clever,” Saeko said sadly. “You’ve always been the smartest of us, Kiyoko.”

Hitoka watched in petrified horror as the two witches opened up their crystal pouches and took out their most used crystal. Kiyoko proffered her jet, and Saeko her rhodochrosite. They pressed the crystals together, linking their fingers, and then closed their other hands on top.

There was no incantation for an oath, just focus, sharp and intense. Time seemed to stand still in the chamber as they began.

Then it came to Hitoka—she _could_ stop this.

Good witches weren’t supposed to cast spells without the proper physical focuses. Dark magic worked the best when you abandoned all the accoutrements of orderly witchcraft and shaped your spell to the environment instead. Hitoka knew this, and she knew that what she was going to do was not something that a good witch would do. But she had to. The only thought running through her head was that she needed to save Kiyoko. She needed to save her from this, from forcing herself to leave on the basis of something that mightn’t even be true.

There were thorny rose branches protruding from Saeko’s throne. And in Hitoka’s crystal pouch was the bloodstone, the focus she would never have tried without Kiyoko’s encouragement to work beyond the rules. The bloodstone, so associated with dark magic, a crystal that suited Hitoka so well.

Maybe this was what she was meant to do.

She held the bloodstone to her chest, the incantation was still fresh in her memory; the rose branches wrapped themselves around her mind and gave her their thorns to shape her focus. She summoned the darkness.

The room went silent, and for a terrifying moment Hitoka thought nothing had happened. Then, all the witches would knew that she’d tried to cast Summoning Darkness, but she had failed, and they’d blame Kiyoko for teaching it to her, even though it had been Hitoka’s impetus, and then they’d cast Kiyoko out of the coven—although she had already sentenced herself to that fate, now—then, perhaps, they would cast out Hitoka too.

And… what would be so bad about that?

Their coven was meant to be unlike any other, free from the rigour and prejudices of other covens, but Hitoka had seen that it wasn’t. They were still sticking by the rules with what had happened to Yui, to Kiyoko. Why _couldn’t_ witches be open with their magic around humans? And what maintained that divide, if not the rules of the coven?

Hitoka was with Kiyoko on this one. She wanted her magic to be wild, to be free. She didn’t want to have to wait until level eight. Pulling the bloodstone closer towards her, she sharpened her focus.

Maybe a second or two had passed, but time seemed to slow as the spell worked it way from its roots in Hitoka’s deepest worries and drew strength from her willpower, as it channelled through the ground and into the rose thorns around the High Priestess’ throne.

As Hitoka kept her gaze levelled at Kiyoko and Saeko across the room, the two of them looking at each other over their joined hands, she felt her bloodstone lighten and dissipate until there was nothing left, and it was spreading outwards as a visceral, tangible _lack_ of light.

It would be wrong to say that the light disappeared. Here, now, subsuming rules, regulations, order—the darkness rose.

 

* * *

 

At the door to the castle stood a young girl, nervous on her first day as a proper apprentice of witchcraft. They were out of the way here, a hidden idyll in rural Miyagi. Communicating only by letter, the witches had summoned her once they were sure her power had manifested, and assigned her to an older witch to work her way through their standard spellbook.

It had been some time since her last letter, but those were witches for you, she supposed. Aging twice as slowly as the average human, their lives ran at a different pace to the world around them. But a whole two months… the young girl had begun to worry. In fact, she wasn’t due to start her apprenticeship for another two months or so longer, but the lack of any word from the coven made her anxious, so she arrived early. Maybe they would appreciate that, interpret her eagerness as initiative—which, on some level, it was. It was nerves, too. It was the curse that had descended on her own town, not far away, the strange things that had started happening and the nights that got longer and longer.

She pulled at the brass knocker by the entrance. Nothing. What was it the High Priestess had said in her last letter? _Your mentor Yui Michimiya will be there to meet you. If you are lost, she will know when you have arrived_. Well, there were no mentors around, let alone anyone coming to answer the door.

The girl stepped away from the door, cautious. Maybe the witches were all busy. Or out in the nearby forest, scavenging.

No—they wouldn’t be. Something was wrong. The girl’s instinct had never failed it before; that was one of the things that had clued her in to her natural proclivity for witchcraft.

Stepping forward, she pushed open the grand castle doors.

Inside, there was only darkness.

“Stay back!”

The girl hadn’t heard where the voice came from, but she jumped back instinctively. The doors flung shut before her eyes, stopping the darkness from escaping. The thought crossed her mind: why would darkness _escape_? It had seemed right to assume that this was the sort of darkness that moved, that couldn’t be contained by the stoney castle walls.

Finally, the girl turned around to look at the person who’d warned her. It was a young woman with short brown hair, dressed simply. She didn’t seem like a witch.

“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I must have the wrong place.”

“You’re looking for the witches?” asked the woman.

Surprised, the girl nodded. “That’s right. Do you know them?”

“I used to,” the woman said, “but there hasn’t been a coven here for some time now.”

“I last heard from them two months ago,” the girl said. It didn’t _feel_ like a long time when every day was nervous anticipation. But this woman must have been from around here, maybe from the nearby town, so the girl trusted her word. “Oh—if you knew the witches, do you know where I might find Yui Michimiya now? I’m meant to be apprenticed to her, only I arrived a little early—”

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, “I don’t know her. If you’ll excuse me.”

She left without another word. The girl watched her leave for a moment, and then looked back to the castle. There were so many questions that needed answers, so many spells she might never learn… but she couldn’t go back in there. Not when it was like that. Turning her back on the ancient stones, she walked away.

**Author's Note:**

> From the author: At this point it bears mentioning that I was assigned four randomly-generated tropes to add a little extra flavour to the challenge, and I chose to incorporate all four of them into the story: [Spell Levels](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpellLevels), [Wizards Live Longer](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WizardsLiveLonger), [Anti-Magic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiMagic), and [Lady of Black Magic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LadyOfBlackMagic). I took a few liberties with that last one, but it definitely still motivated the direction this story took. Did you pick up on all of them? Please leave a comment!
> 
> Frome the artist: I had a lot more planned for this fic but unfortunately I lost track of time and classes asked more attention than I originally anticipated. I hope you can still enjoy what little I was able to contribute to this entry!


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